Would you rather see it in a fairly packed theater, or with just a few people in there with you, or would you like the theater all to yourself? Why?I like a full theater! Where I am no one ever does anything rude, like talk out loud or throw things at the screen, so I usually enjoy feeling the presence of the crowd and hearing them react to the movie. I like it when they laugh or gasp -- I take it to mean that they are immersed in the movie and enjoying the experience.

What's the funniest thing you've overheard other viewers say (I usually hear these things as we're all piling out together afterwards)? I sat next to a young couple. When Gollum showed up the guy chuckled in amusement and muttered something like "This guy again", but the girl started whimpering and covered her eyes. I guess if you first saw LotR when you were 7, you might have been traumatized by Gollum :P

Has anything Unexpected happened during any of your viewings? The 10-minute Star Trek preview in IMAX. I didn't know about the preview in advance. About a few minutes in, my sister turned and asked me if we walked into the right theatre :P

1. Would you rather see it in a fairly packed theater, or with just a few people in there with you, or would you like the theater all to yourself? Why?I prefer seeing it in a theater with just a few people. If it is crowded, you usually have people who annoy you with their conversations and you have tall people sitting in front of you.

2. What's the funniest thing you've overheard other viewers say (I usually hear these things as we're all piling out together afterwards)?A woman asked her children whether The Hobbit was taking place before or after The Lord of the Rings (she asked some time after the display of "60 years earlier" so it should have been clear when it was taking place).

Nope, but I got the impression that the HFR projectors were 'locked down'
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after the film was installed on it. I suppose if the 2D trailers go out on the same projector before the film starts then that might explain why someone felt the polarisers shouldn't be there (it would make the trailers/adverts look a little darker), and hence why they forgot to put them in again... as far as I know this is done manually which is why it seems common practice to leave them in-situ. There's no different between standard 3D and HFR 3D in this respect.

I got so nervous I was in the wrong theater that I had to walk out to check and be sure I was in the right one. That really scared me. "Why, to think of it, we're in the same tale still! It's going on. Don't the great tales never end?"

I may have more opportunities to be in an empty theater!
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And while I was glad to have a crowd at my first few viewings, the last was in an empty theater and I became wholly immersed in the movie. I loved it. And I have discovered that HFR 3D is still here in San Diego, much to my delighted surprise!

The rest of the country can have their Super Bowl. I will go to the opera, stop at home to feed my cat, and head for the theater.

(On a side note, I rose this morning to enjoy my rare Sunday off and the opportunity to watch CBS Sunday Morning with my coffee in hand only to find its start time had been moved up to 6 a.m. to accommodate the ALL DAY Super Bowl programming. *snort* Bah humbug.)

Um, what was I saying? Oh yes. #2: the movie ended and I heard "That's IT? They just STOPPED THERE?" to which someone else replied "There's a sequel" followed by a groan from the first person.

Nothing unexpected has happened. There have been some minor annoyances - a couple keeping up a running commentary throughout, and guy two rows down in front of me who pulled out his cell phone with a screen that must have been set at maxium brightness and proceeded to text half the universe. At one viewing there was a huge group of teens who absolutely delighted in Gollum's every move and expression, which was kind of fun. Every time I have been the only one who stayed through the end credits, which I found surprising on the days the theater was packed. (I don't stay any more.)

I have honestly lost count of the number of times I've seen the movie, but I'm pretty excited about adding to whatever that count may be!

It's a horrible thing to go to a movie theater or any venue with an audience and sit near someone who has taken a bath in perfume. I really don't understand; after all, the point of perfume is to make someone want to get closer, not repel them. A faint whiff is enticing; a deluge of scent is gag-inducing.

I have to question my own sanity having season tickets for Sunday matinees, since that is the time favored by little old ladies drenched in noxious perfume.

I work in an ICU where no one wears perfume because the patients are so sensitive to anything and everything. It's a good place for me!

When OhioHobbit was coming out of the theater after the movie, he heard someone humming the Misty Mountain song.

OhioHobbit reminded me of something that made me laugh out loud at the theater. When we came out of the movie, I (of course) made for the restrooms. There lined up were most of the men who had been in the theater to see The Hobbit -- they were holding coats and purses. Their women all had the same goal in mind that I did. OhioHobbit and I had stayed a bit and watched the credits, so by the time I came back out of the restroom, most of the men were gone. Poor OhioHobbit was holding up the wall alone -- holding a coat and purse.

Lights came up at the end of FOTR and there was a general "Is that all there is?" I had to laugh. As to the wonderful questions: 1. Like packed theater if the audience is in tune with the film. You can know that when people put their hands in the air and yell as the roller coaster that encourages you to buy stuff runs by on the screen before the trailers. Like fewer people after having seen the film a couple of time.

2. I kept having trouble with the surround sound. The dying goblin Gollum eventually eats is making a frightful snorting and gurgling noise as you may recall. The first two times I saw AUJ I thought the noise was coming from someone sitting on my right. and I was worried.

Great questions, Roheryn! Although, you may speak freely of Thorin's hair whenever the urge moves you. You are among friends (and fellow Thorin-hair/eyes/voice obsessives) here, lol. 1. Would you rather see it in a fairly packed theater, or with just a few people in there with you, or would you like the theater all to yourself? Why?I would rather there were other people in the theater - but not so packed that I can't get a good seat, lol! And generally I really don't like crowds, so I'd have to say that in a theater is the exception to that rule for me. Maybe it's because everyone is sitting down, but it doesn't bother me, and in fact I like it better when there are a lot of people there to react to the movie too. I haven't ever witnessed problems with rudeness, but I'm not sure if that's due to the kinds of films I go see - mainly fantasy films and kids films. So I don't know what it's like seeing other types of films with a lot of people, I imagine you get different types of people depending on the movie being shown. Most of what's happened to me has been unintentional, or just me being really over-sensitive. For example, during one AUJ viewing, I did have to change my seat because the people behind me kept knocking their feet into my seat. Someone else probably would not have been bothered by that, but because I really wanted nothing to break the spell of being in Middle-earth, I got up and moved somewhere else.

2. What's the funniest thing you've overheard other viewers say (I usually hear these things as we're all piling out together afterwards)?I did hear some young adult boys on the way out, saying that they really liked it and - I quote - saying, "I don't know what the critics were talking about". Which made me very happy :-). But that doesn't really qualify as funny, so let me try to think of something else ... oh ok, here's something: upon exiting after one 3D viewing, some poor fellow accidentally also threw his own eyeglasses into the 3D glasses recycling bin on the way out, lol! So several people were trying to be helpful (because the bin was in the dark hallway on the way out) by shining the lights of their cell phones into the bin so he could fish out his glasses. He finally got them out and everyone cheered. It was a nice moment. 3. Has anything Unexpected happened during any of your viewings?Yes, in the HFR viewings, there was a problem with the audio in two places: in Bag End, when Bilbo is walking between rooms as he's telling Frodo about Lobelia trying to steal his spoons, when he's hidden from view, his line of dialogue also cuts out so you didn't hear him say the part specifically about the spoons. You hear his dialogue again once you see him on-camera again. And also, in Rivendell, when Gandalf says "I had no idea Lord Elrond had sent for you", off-screen you're supposed to hear Saruman say, "He didn't. I did". But in the HFR version, we didn't hear those lines, at all. Which does make it seem odd that Gandalf makes that face, because we didn't hear the words that provoke the face. I saw it three times in HFR and it happened each time, but it was in the same theater each time, so I don't know if that had anything to do with it. And in both scenes, it involved dialogue that was spoken/heard when the character speaking them was off-camera, so there's definitely a pattern there, but I don't know what would cause it. And it only happened in the 3D HFR version (I also saw it in 2D and 3D IMAX).

Also, regarding people not knowing that a movie was part of a trilogy - I know people who had the same reaction when they saw FOTR. We forget that we fans are intimately involved in the story and these movies and we know a lot of these things beforehand. I know people though, who were really seriously annoyed that they'd spent three hours in a movie (FOTR) where everyone talked about destroying "this ring" and at the end of the movie, "the stupid ring" wasn't anywhere remotely near being destroyed :-). So I could easily imagine people feeling the same way at the end of AUJ.

some poor fellow accidentally also threw his own eyeglasses into the 3D glasses recycling bin on the way out, lol!

Are they designed to be one-use only?

I bought my 3D glasses at the cinema - with a hard-plastic frame - about a year ago and take them with me to any 3D film. Is it different in the States? Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..." Dwarves: "Pretty rings..." Men: "Pretty rings..." Sauron: "Mine's better."

"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Saurons master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.

they are made of fairly cheap plastic. They hand them to you on the way in and you toss them in the bin on the way out...and then they repackage and hand them out again. There may be a "cleaning" step in between, I'm not sure. There's nothing to keep you from taking them home, but no particular reason to either. Silverlode

I'm not sure if it might change in the future, but where I am in the U.S., they give you the 3D glasses in little sealed bags when you go into the theater. Then when the movie is over, you're supposed to toss them in these big bins they have near all the exits so they can be recycled. The 3D glasses are from a company called "RealD". Here is a more detailed explanation:

"RealD established a recycling program for its disposable glasses in November 2008 and has collection containers in each theater with a RealD screen. When containers are full, they're sent to a recycling center, where the glasses are cleaned using heat and other cleaning agents, checked manually and by machine for quality assurance, and then individually repackaged."

I'm not really sure why they do this. I wouldn't mind buying my own pair and then just re-using them, like you do. Especially because when I went to the IMAX 3D version, the glasses were different and they were not in those little sealed bags and I got really grossed out at the idea that someone else had worn them and they might not have been cleaned (*blecch*).

It's interesting how the practice is so different in other countries - I'm wondering now if it might be different even in other areas of the U.S. - maybe it's only the company RealD that does this.

I haven't been to an IMAX in NZ so I'm not sure what their glasses procedure is. For all I know it might be the same as you guys have. Celebrimbor: "Pretty rings..." Dwarves: "Pretty rings..." Men: "Pretty rings..." Sauron: "Mine's better."

"Ah, how ironic, the addictive qualities of Saurons master weapon led to its own destruction. Which just goes to show, kids - if you want two small and noble souls to succeed on a mission of dire importance... send an evil-minded beggar with them too." - Gandalf's Diaries, final par, by Ufthak.

1. Would you rather see it in a fairly packed theater, or with just a few people in there with you, or would you like the theater all to yourself? Why?

Very few to none at all. This is due to the many distractions others can cause.... talking, texting, etc... Exception: I took my students on a field trip to see the movie. This was an amazing experience as they were all so excited (which I believe was a result of my own excitement in teaching the novel). The silence in the theater that day told me that my students were completely swept away in Middle-Earth (A very satisfying and heart-warming moment).We had watched all of the production video blogs from PJ and any other clips from youtube we could find. Two weeks before the premier of the film, I was informed that I was awarded a grant that I had applied for back in August in hopes of paying for the trip. Because of this, I was able to take 50 9th-10th grade students to see the film in 3D HFR.

2. What's the funniest thing you've overheard other viewers say (I usually hear these things as we're all piling out together afterwards)?

For me it was hilarious to hear my students complain about the cut off point of AUJ. Many of my students made comments about not getting to see Beorn (one of my favorite characters), which led them to beg me to take them all again next year to see The Desolation of Smaug.... The absolute highlight of the day.

3. Has anything Unexpected happened during any of your viewings?

The second time I went to see the film was with both of my brothers in Erie, PA. over Christmas break. There was a huge snow storm, but we ventured out anyway, just to see it together as we had done ten years ago with each of the LoTR movies. Just as Bilbo and Gollum began their game of riddles, the storm caused the power to go out! After the power was restored, the 3D projectors were thrown out of whack and were not able to be repaired..... we were the only ones to stay and finish watching the film even though it was all blurry. When we left the theater we were kindly refunded by management.